Category: London Calling

If I had to sum up the UK government’s pandemic response succinctly, I’d say “better late than never, but frustratingly late.”

The UK lagged Europe in implementing non-pharmaceutical interventions, stubbornly insisted Christmas wouldn’t be canceled – only to go back into lock-down days ahead of the holiday – and inexplicably waited weeks while case counts in India went vertical before restricting travel into the UK.

A few weeks ago, I wondered what, in a few weeks, we would we wish we had done “now” instead of waiting to do it later.

We had been chatting over lunch with friends about the early signs that the Delta variant (a.k.a. the-variant-formerly-known-as-Indian) was spreading exponentially, and what could and should be done about it.

“Their only choice is to extend lock-down, and they can’t or won’t” a friend argued. I disagreed – arguing there were other possible responses – re-targeting and accelerating the vaccination program, for example – shifting supplies to the areas affected and and opening vaccination to the younger age groups likely to be socializing and thereby spreading the virus.

I wasn’t privy to enough information to argue that was the right thing to do, just that it was a thing that could be done, and that if it were to be done, doing it now would be better than doing it later.

A few weeks later the government has announced that the June 21st target to eliminate remaining restrictions will be missed due to rising case counts and hospitalization. They’ve been “surge vaccinating” in hot spots, and as of yesterday (15 June) accelerated access to vaccinations for younger age groups and reduced the inter-dose delay from ~12 to ~8 weeks.

Again I couldn’t help but wonder why couldn’t we decide to take these steps a few weeks ago?

There are very few “right answers” in life – mostly we swim in an ocean of trade-offs. We try to make the best decisions we can, given the situation we’re in and the information we have. And we hope not to regret our decisions later.

Many of us struggle to think clearly and in advance about what change(s) would make us change our decision. My experience has been that by thinking through those triggers, and playing “what if” with a goal of minimizing regret we can often make “better” decisions. Or at least make decisions we’d make again, if the choice was ours to make again.

A simple way of thinking about minimizing regret is to ask yourself, when faced with a decision between alternatives, given everything you know now which choice do you think will cause you more regret over time? What could happen, or what could you learn, that would change your choice? How likely do you think you are you to learn that thing, or for any of the possible triggers you identified to happen? Is it possible to change your choice once you’ve made it? Is it possible to change if you made the other choice? Is one direction easier? Cheaper?

What we regret as individuals depends heavily on what we value. You and I, faced with the same decision – and both of us trying to minimize regret – may come to opposite conclusions. We might not agree, and it might not be obvious why we disagree. Still, if we’ve been successful, and not just self-delusional, if faced with making the decision again both of us would repeat our choice.

Consider the decisions that the government has been lambasted for delaying. Between the time a decision was made to do nothing (e.g. the decision that there would be no Christmas lock-down, or the decision not to impose restrictions on travel from India to the UK) and the time that decision was reversed, what was learned? What changed? At what point was that outcome certain, or predictable with high confidence?

High stakes decision making with incomplete and inaccurate information is hard, I mean really hard. There are no A/B tests – no way to know, or convince others, what would have happened if we made the other choice. What would have happened if we had turned right. This has real and significant implications. If we take action to avoid a disaster, and the disaster never materializes, there will be voices – sometimes loud ones – asserting that the disaster never would have happened regardless, and our actions were unnecessary and in some way harmful.

This sentiment has become a louder undertone in the media in the UK of late, seeming to increase in volume as delaying the removal of lock-down restrictions past the June target became more likely. Past modeling of disease and resulting hospitalization and death have been wrong – overshooting the observed reality, sometimes significantly. Restrictions on freedoms and trade have a cost – in money, in livelihoods, in opportunity. These costs are real.

When making a trade-off between predictable economic damage and likely increased illness and loss of life, and knowing what you know, how would you minimize regret?

The 2021 Eurovision Finals are this Saturday, in Rotterdam. They’re being held in front of a live unmasked “test audience” of 3500 people. Last year we had colluded with friends of ours to get tickets to one of the semi-finals, had booked a place to stay and were all looking forward to the trip. I don’t have to tell you how that plan turned out.

Are these your plans?

Our best laid plans, yes.

Oh well, never mind.

Will Farrel (who I can’t say I’m generally a huge fan of) made a mockumentary to tide fans over. A bunch of prior year performers made cameos. That’s the origin of the the post title, by the way – and that character in the film is going to be delivering Iceland’s scores on Saturday.

Speaking of Iceland… their entry last year – Think About Things by Daði Freyr – was a favorite to win (Russia’s entry was another fan favorite). They’re back this year, and it seemed cruel and unusual that the band had to pull out of performing live when one of their member tested COVID positive. (Performers who would have been in last year were allowed to return, but had to come with a new song.)

At any rate, we watched the first and second semi-finals over the past few nights. Saturday we’ll likely have a couple friends over, order food, and watch the finals.

It’s another bit of normal, and I’m very happy to have it.

In less up-beat news, the India COVID variant I mentioned has done what things that grow exponentially do – it’s grown exponentially. Cases of that variant have grown 160% in the last week. That growth is against the backdrop of overall case counts declining – so it’s easy to miss, or ignore, when looking at the case charts.

The government has made repeated statements that most of those affected are eligible for vaccination but haven’t signed up to be vaccinated. Even assuming this is true, it neither solves the problem nor undoes the inexplicable delay to restrict travel from India as their COVID wave grew. In the hope of preserving the mid-June date for of relaxing remaining restrictions, second vaccinations for over 50s have been accelerated, and vaccination appointments have been opened for everyone 34 and older. In hotspot areas, vaccinations are being offered to everyone over 18. It’s a race, and the virus has a couple week lead, and unlike the immunity given by vaccination, the virus grows fast.

While on the topic of health – and bad news – Dawnise learned that a high school friend of hers has been diagnosed with cancer. Like too many Americans, she’s un or under-insured and has setup a go-fund-me to try to cover her potentially infinite care costs. The longer I spend living in countries with actual health care systems the less I can pretend to understand or rationalize this clearly broken state of affairs.

The UK is taking another step “toward normal” today. In England, indoor hospitality (read: pubs and restaurants) can resume; hosting parties of six people or two households. Outdoor gatherings up to 30 are okay, museums, theaters, and gyms can reopen. And snogging and shagging strangers is now legal again.

At the same time, there is significant concern about hot spots of “India variant” cases. The Telegraph reports (paywall) “total numbers have more than doubled in each of the past two weeks.” The official message from the government is that the planned reopening on June 21st is under threat, but today’s reopening will proceed as planned.

A recurring refrain in the UK is that Boris’ Tory government has taken many of its critical decisions a bit too late. Locking down. Restricting Travel. The timing of travel restrictions from India are currently top of the news cycle.

On June 1st, today will be “two weeks ago” – and there’s a little insistent voice in my head asking what we’ll wish we’d done, or hadn’t done, today when we look back in two weeks.

The scientific community is concerned – an article in The Guardian (paywall) quoted Professor Sir Mark Walport (you can never have too many honorariums ’round here) – chief scientific adviser until 2017 – who advised people continue remaining outdoors as much as possible, saying “my advice is that just because you can do something doesn’t necessarily mean you should.”

Wise words in many contexts.

The data emerging from the “India variant” hot spots seems to suggest the risk continues to be higest to the non-vaccinated. Fortunately there’s unlikely to be much overlap between young people not yet eligible for vaccination and those most likely to return to indoor activities.

That Telegraph article I mentioned? It reassures readers that the doubling in each of the last two weeks was “climbing from a very low base, with just 1,313 cases so far detected in total.” I guess the author never had to figure out how much wheat or rice ends up in the proverbial chess board.

People do not understand exponential growth.

Last week I read Michael Lewis‘ (The Big Short, Flash Boys, Moneyball) latest: The Premonition: A Pandemic Story. The inability to collectively grok exponential curves is a depressingly recurring theme. (The book is recommended, but not uplifting.)

On the “home front,” we’re both well. Dawnise is fully vaccinated, I’m between jabs. I’m anxious for my second, but reminding myself that the “first-doses-first” strategy has proven good for the collective, and the inter-vaccination duration seems to significantly improve efficacy, making it good for me individually.

Still.

I hate waiting.

Sometimes you don’t notice what’s missing until it comes back.

I hadn’t really noticed how odd it was to not see children outside until the UK largely returned to face-to-face schooling a couple weeks ago. I was on a cool down walk at the end of my run when – for the first time in a long time – I saw parents walking their kids to school.

It felt like the city had taken a deep breath. The first since late December, when the UK went back into lock-down, despite the government just days prior saying “canceling Christmas” would be inhumane and wasn’t an option on the table.

Last week – just over a year since the initial lock-down order – outdoor gatherings of six people (or two households) became permitted again. As the widely circulating meme cast it – now you and five friends could get drunk in a park.

We had a couple over and sat chatting on the chilly but sunny patio, drinking rosé and willing it to be warmer than it actually was. It was great to see other people again, and Dawnise and I were both pretty exhausted when they left, only a few hours later.

We might have forgotten how to socialize.

This coming Monday non-essential retail can reopen, and restaurants and pubs can serve customers outdoors (still subject to the so-called “rule of six”). When the weather cooperates we’ll consider venturing out to eat something we didn’t cook and wasn’t delivered by a dude (and it’s nearly always a dude) on a scooter.

Barring a spike in acute disease, that will be the regime until mid May.

Things otherwise are largely unchanged. We’ve marked six months in our “new” apartment – no leaks or other major issues to speak of.

Dawnise was invited for her first vaccination a few weeks back – just before the UK shifted to mostly administering second doses. I look forward to getting mine “soon.”

My phone tells me that in the year since I geared up to run in the cold I’ve run 770km – about 480 miles in old money. I’ve replaced my shoes once, and when the temperature got down near freezing I supplemented the wool base layer with a windbreaker, hat and gloves. I only skipped a handful of days, when it was icy, or driving rain. I still can’t say I like running, but the routine has become part of how I mark the passing of time. Like ordering more coffee, or coffee filters.

My practical driving exam, scheduled for December, was canceled due to the Christmas lock-down, and rescheduled to early May – which seemed impossibly far off. I got email the other day saying that testing has been set to resume, and that my test is expected to proceed as scheduled. If it does, and assuming I pass, it will be 10 months since I applied for my provisional license.

Fingers crossed.

Yesterday, after much foreshadowing, Boris revealed a four stage plan to ease and end UK lockdown restrictions.

Dawnise and I watched him read the prepared statement to a small group of MPs.

The plan targets the end of July, by which time his goal is that every adult in the UK has been offered the vaccine. It seems cautious and rational. The dates are “no earlier than”s. The delays between steps are driven by how long it takes to see and measure the impact of the previous change on the key metrics.

It’s the sort of plan that should have proposed during the first lockdown. Or the second. I’m trying to say “better late than never” with a straight face.

And really, as much as my rational mind approves of a plan that (finally) “follows the science,” I’m struggling to keep perspective, and to stay positive.

Put a fork in me. I’m done.

Telling people they maybe might get most of their lives back at the end of June is like Lucy holding the football for Charlie Brown saying “this time, for sure.”

I’m fully expecting it to get yanked away, leaving me flat on my back.

And yet… I’ve been wrong before. Take the frankly amazing progress in creating and distributing vaccines.

A year ago if you’d offered to bet that we’d have multiple highly efficacious vaccines, that over two hundred million people would be inoculated, and that vaccination would actually reduce serious illness… well, I’d have certainly bet against you.

And happily I’d have lost.

Dave, my mind is going. I can feel it.

You know those mornings when you wake up more tired than when you went to bed?

Before the holidays I was scraping the bottom of my proverbial barrel of fucks. I took some time away from work and, like many of my colleagues, came back feeling not the least bit refreshed. If I was scraping the bottom of the barrel before, at this point I’m digging furrows in the barrel head.

I need to do something about that.

In other news… well, there’s very little other news. We remain healthy, and aside from a sometimes overwhelming sense of cabin fever, mostly sane.

It was Dawnise’s birthday a couple weeks back. I found a west end hotel (The Chesterfield Mayfair, for locals who might be interested) that was offering afternoon tea home delivery.

We’ve acquired most of a tea set (minus a multi-tier stand, which are very pretty but almost never really useful and always a pain in the arse to store) in a V&A Alice in Wonderland pattern – so we broke out the fine china and made an event of it. I put on a shirt and coat. Finger sandwiches, scones jam and creme, and a selection of patisserie containing more sugar than anyone should really consume. Oh, and tea, of course.

In another welcome break from the sameness, we got a dusting of snow last Sunday. We got bundled up and went for a walk. It turned into rain later in the day, and by the next morning no trace remained.

On a positive note, vaccination progress in the UK is a ray of light through the omnipresent gloom, and an all-too-rare example of competence in an otherwise lackluster and uneven government performance through this crisis.

But the pandemic, as they say, ain’t over ’till it’s over.

And just as when I wrote a month ago, an American, throwing stones on the subject of government dysfunction seems a bit like claiming a shiny new ocean liner is unsinkable.

My memory of the pandemic will be punctuated by haircuts.

Dawnise and I had just come out of our local Waitrose and she noticed the barber across the street was open, and seemed not to have people waiting.

“You should get a haircut” she said.

I started to demur – wanting to help her home with the groceries and figuring I could “do it later” – but a little voice and her side-eye glance won out, and I walked over to get a haircut. “Cut it a little short,” I said – “no telling when I’ll be back.”

That turned out to be the last day barbers were open for a while.

When restrictions were relaxed I went back to the same barber and had him reprise his performance.

The next lock-down was a bit more telegraphed, and I made sure to get in before the curtain came down, and I went back again when it came back up.

When London was abruptly put into Tier 4 just before Christmas I missed my attack of opportunity*.

So… I could use a haircut, but given the case counts, and their trajectory in London and the south of England, I’m betting it’s going to be a while before I get a chance.

In other news, as of this morning the UK is “really, really out” – split from the EU. Boris and his government did ultimately “get Brexit done” – the deal coming down to brinkmanship and 11th hour negotiations, which should surprise no one. The UK had precious little leverage, and both sides seemed to recognize it, though both sides were careful to limit how bluntly they’d say it aloud.

This emergent power dynamic wasn’t a foregone conclusion. When the referendum happened in 2016 I think it’s reasonable to say that the future state of the EU was “hazy,” as the Magic 8-ball might say. Over the intervening four years the EU seems to have stuck together, while the UK has fractured under stress. I’d give 6/10 odds that Scotland holds a referendum to leave the UK in the next few years. And 4/10 odds that they in-fact do. Watch this space.

Since at least the run-up to the referendum it has been nearly impossible to unpick underlying economic and government sovereignty arguments from the falsehoods, misrepresentations and xenophobic fervor. Yanis Varoufakis’ Adults in the Room helped to convince me that there were absolutely legitimate arguments to be made in support of breaking ties, but I continue to believe that teams are stronger than heroes – and think while the UK exiting the EU diminishes both, the damage to the UK will be more severe.

Time will tell.

Nie mój cyrk, nie moje małpy.

And as an American at this moment in history, I’m not picking up any stones to throw.

In 20 days it’s highly likely (>9/10) that Biden will be inaugurated as the 46th President of the United States. And a significant number of Republican elected officials, and several million Republican voters, will reject him and his presidency as illegitimate. They’ll continue to believe in systematic and wide-spread voter fraud, despite a lack of evidence so preponderant even Trump’s toadying Attorney General decided he couldn’t say otherwise, and coincidentally “stepped” down shortly thereafter.

None of the evidence, or lack of evidence, matters. We believe what we believe, often without even fully knowing why – and we wrap those beliefs so tightly around ourselves that they become us, so we react in self-defense when our beliefs, and thus our identities are questioned, or threatened.

All this often gets wrapped up in a phrase like “identity politics” which, like gerrymandering, sounds almost cute – and utterly fails to capture the toxicity of the concept.

It’s hard to change a belief or opinion about something when that change threatens your sense of self – who you and others think you are.

There’s a quote, oft attributed to Lao Tzu (but maybe it was Buddha, or perhaps even Margaret Thatcher):

“Watch your thoughts. They become words. Watch your words. They become deeds. Watch your deeds. They become habits. Watch your habits. They become character. Character is everything.”

Regardless of who said it, seems they were very nearly right. But when they said “character” they meant “self.”

Another of my favorite quotes is this exchange from Dogma:

Looking for a new year’s resolution?

Maybe try holding your identities up to the light, and being deliberate about which ones you keep.

I didn’t realize when I set out on a run this morning that today was the public Boxing Day holiday.

I just assumed that the streets being zombie-movie deserted were ’cause Dawnise and I were among the few who didn’t cram onto trains to escape the city before the stay-at-home order went into effect. (I do wonder how many of those people “escaped” to places that came under the same restrictions a few days later, and how many of them contributed to that outcome.)

If I’m honest, it being a holiday makes a lot more sense, and explains why my Monmouth order placed before Christmas hasn’t yet arrived.

The 21st was our wedding anniversary (twenty four, but who’s counting). The DVSA finally acknowledged on Sunday evening that my Monday morning driving test was canceled, so with no need to leave, we spent the day at home. We had managed to buy each-other the same gift – each snagging a tricky-to-find copy of Horrified, so we punched out a bunch of cardboard chits and spent a while saving the villagers from Dracula and The Creature from the Black Lagoon.

For the past few years it’s been our tradition to have anniversary Beef Wellington at the Goring Dining Room. Of course, our booking for Sunday evening also fell victim to Saturday’s “Tier 4” announcement, so after considering delivery, we decided to have a go at making it ourselves. Dawnise watched a couple helpful videos, friends helpfully pointed me to Turner & George where I picked up a Chateaubriand sized for two, and we got the needed bits via Waitrose delivery and a quick trip for remainders. The result might not have earned a Michelin star, but it wasn’t far off, and was absolutely delicious.

We exchanged a few gifts on Christmas day – including more two-player friendly cooperative board games. A copy of The Captain Is Dead: Dangerous Planet, which we played (and lost) the other night, and a copy of Mysterium, which I expect we’ll play soon.

Though not strictly intended as a Christmas gift, I got her a copy of Superliminal, which she’s taken up and is enjoying even as I type.

I’ve taken off work through the 4th – and have been spending time reading, playing aforementioned games, and thinking a bit about work – what’s going well, what could go better, and how I might nudge things in that direction in the new year. I finally read Dune, after multiple aborted attempts in the past. I’m glad I did, but feel no particular compulsion to read the sequels

In other news, case counts in our local area are trending in the wrong direction, and I expect the current restrictions to be maintained or tightened when they’re reviewed in a few days. I don’t see a path to relaxing these restrictions that doesn’t involve acceleration vaccination, which in turn seems to hinge on the ongoing review of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine.

This is likely my last note of 2020, and with it we send our best wishes for your new year to start well, and to improve on 2020 in every meaningful way.

Stay healthy, stay sane.

Moments ago it was announced that London and much of the south east of England will enter a newly created “Tier 4” starting tomorrow morning, with restrictions largely matching the previous national “lock-downs.”

The oft-discussed plan to relax restrictions for the days around Christmas – clearly a concession to what people wanted and not driven by any rigorous rational reasoning – have been scrapped in areas in the new highest tier, and restricted to “just Christmas day” for less restricted areas of the country.

I’m waiting for the seemingly inevitable confirmation from the DVSA that my driving test Monday morning has been canceled. It’s fine. I’ve only been working on it since July.